SR2 might not be pretty, but SR3's character model textures are some of the worst I've ever seen. I find it puzzling how they somehow went backwards and didn't allow for a dynamic day and night cycle, it doesn't make sense. The environment is rendered fine, but it's a shame the city lacks anything of interest.
SRTT Saints Row: The Third - Remastered Announced
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SR2 might not be pretty, but SR3's character model textures are some of the worst I've ever seen. I find it puzzling how they somehow went backwards and didn't allow for a dynamic day and night cycle, it doesn't make sense. The environment is rendered fine, but it's a shame the city lacks anything of interest.
I have no doubt that the build that has been featured in every leak we seen so far was still in WIP and will have a Day One patch like every other game that has been releasing for the past few years. The bugs we experienced like the blank/barely moving facial animations and the lighting will all be (hopefully) fixed in that Day One patch.
I think the city looks absolutely beautiful shader-wise, something Stilwater lacks because of it slowly and inevitably becoming graphically outdated.
Well, that can be easily remedied by using various skin mods on this site.
Yes, that was a disappointment. My other complaint was the lack of lightning in storms. They have thunder, but no lightning. Saint Row 1 had awesome lightning!
Again, it was clearly a case where they ran out of time and had to cut features. Some other examples:
- Why are there so many ladders all around the city that you can't even climb? Clearly, when the assets were created, they were planning to make them climbable but they ran out of time.
- The raised train was originally designed to be moving and something the player could ride. It always seemed odd that there's a totally non-functional track going all around the city. Although, Mafia II suffers from the exact same issue (also sad).
- Powder was originally supposed to be a building you could go inside and would become a crib. You can get into the back, but that's not the part that would become a crib, so it seems like they originally had more plans for that. Although, if they were going to simply transform it into another of their clone tower cribs, there's no great loss there.
If the masterminds of time constraints could provide tools, we could at least try it ourselves.
The Remaster would've been such a gorgeous opportunity. Alas, the project got outsourced and there's next to no way of communicating. I've already asked Sperasoft in a DM on social media if there'd be a chance for tools, but sofar nothing.
Excuse me, but how many games in this franchise are going to be wasted to unfulfilled potential I wonder?
Powder was indeed going to be a crib - it wasn't a mission, it was a stronghold. But maybe considering the time constraints it was for the better of it. I wouldn't want that same copy pasted interior from Safeword, Burns Hill nuclear plant and 3 Count Casino in Powder.
I play on consoles, so I don't have access to mods. I just this forum, because the old SR forum doesn't exist anymore... for some reason.
I think the source of them running out of time came directly from their new engine, but SR4's state had no excuse, given how more detailed SR2 was after a short development time after SR1. I guess Stilwater had an excuse because of the Ultor renovation project and hints of that in SR1's story, but maybe SR5 should be better taken care of and hopefully Volition doesn't focus on dumb things like dildo bats and whored mode over a better story-line and more unique cribs/layered clothing, etc.
It's not about realism in this case, realism doesn't matter in that game, SR3+SRIV+GOOH all have a cartoony artstyle!3 and 4's artstyles do look too cartoonish. The problem with the remaster, largely, is the rigging and the not-so-well-thought out lack of continuity in their look. Gat's new face doesn't go well with his outfit, but then again, his outfit was stupid to begin with. With better handling and care, they could have done a decent job to bring the models to life, but unfortunately, this isn't a proper remaster, it's more like a half-master done on a small budget for a years old game that's getting made irrelevant once SR5 comes out. Making the characters more realistic guarantees better textures than the really blurry, generic looking models we got in the original games. I think 2 hit the sweetspot, but the overwhelming bloom, lighting and texturing issues in that game prevented the character models from looking as good as they could have been.
Take, for example, Julius. Here is what he looks like from 1 to 2.
He still looks cartoonish, but a bit more defined and has less blurry textures. The transition though, looked more natural. He kinda got redesigned, but if you look closely, you can see his SR2 look still retains defining characteristics of his old SR1 model.
In Saints Row 4, somehow they managed to turn what looked like a decent model into a horribly, low-res design where clearly the person modelling him didn't pay any attention at all to continuity.
I mean what the? If other game developers downgraded their character models from one game to the next, they'd get lambasted to hell, but when Volition does it, it's suddenly ok? How could anyone think the in-game model looks good? It's a screenshot from the game, but it looks the same in-game when you get a good look at his model.
They got rid of so much detail because of the art direction itself. His Jacket doesn't even have a leather texture on it despite it being obviously leather in the first game. Not to mention the milky white eyes.
I wouldn't call the art styles of those games cartoony at all. But Agents of Mayhem is definitely cartoony. I always liked the Saints Row games because of their graphical realism. I don't like cartoonish games like Fortnite.
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